Psychometric Testing Explained Like ABC
The word psychometric is formed from the Greek words for
mental and measurement. Psychometric tests attempt to objectively
measure aspects of your
mental ability or your
personality. You
are most likely to encounter psychometric testing as part of the
recruitment or selection process and occupational psychometric
tests are designed to provide employers with a
reliable method of
selecting the most suitable job applicants or candidates for
promotion.
Psychometric tests are seldom used in isolation and represent just
one of the methods used by employers in the selection process. The
usual procedures for selecting candidates still apply, for
example: A job is advertised and you are invited to send in your
resume, which is then checked to see if the organisation thinks
that your experience and qualifications are suitable.
It is only after this initial screening that you may be asked to
sit a psychometric test. These tests aim to measure attributes
like intelligence,
aptitude and
personality, providing a potential
employer with an insight into how well you work with other people,
how well you
handle stress, and whether you will be able to cope
with the intellectual demands of the job.
There are two main types of psychometric tests:
- Ability Tests – Measure your ability to perform or carry out different tasks.
- Personality Questionnaires - Measure your way of doing things, and specifically the way you interact with your environment and other people.
Aptitude Tests
Aptitude and ability tests are designed to assess your logical
reasoning or thinking performance. They consist of multiple choice
questions and are administered under exam conditions. They are
strictly timed and a typical test might allow 30 minutes for 30 or
so questions.
Verbal Ability
- These include questions which test your ability
to spell words correctly, use correct grammar, understand
analogies and follow detailed written instructions.
Numeric Ability - These include questions on basic arithmetic,
number sequences and simple mathematics. In more complex numerical
critical reasoning questions, blocks of information are provided
that require interpretation.
Abstract Reasoning - These tests are usually based on diagrams and
measure your ability to identify the underlying logic of a pattern
and then determine the solution.
Spatial Reasoning - These tests measure your ability to manipulate
shapes in two dimensions or to visualize three-dimensional objects
presented as two-dimensional pictures.
Mechanical Reasoning - These tests are designed to assess your
knowledge of physical and mechanical principles.
Aptitude tests produce
raw scores which are compared to a
benchmark which may be either average scores for a particular norm
group or which may be a specific criterion of performance. In
other words, your score may indicate that a certain ability is
better than say 70% of graduates, or is at a level which shows
sufficient competence to carry out certain tasks required by the
job.
Aptitude tests are designed so that very few people will be able
to complete all of the questions, and the problems usually become
more complex as the test progresses. Don’t be concerned if you do
not complete all of the questions - its the number of correct
answers that matters.
Personality Questionnaires
The principle behind
personality questionnaires is that it is
possible to quantify your personality by asking you about your
feelings, thoughts and behavior. You will be presented with
statements describing various ways of feeling or acting and asked
to answer each one on a scale. For example;
1. I enjoy taking risks?
| A) True | B) False |
2. I like to be the center of attention?
| A) strongly disagree | B) disagree | C) neutrals | D) agree | E) strongly agree |
The number of questions you are expected to answer varies from
about 50 to 500 depending on the particular questionnaire used by
the employer.
Personality has a significant role to play in providing answers to
questions the employer may have regarding your
enthusiasm and
motivation as well as providing an insight into whether you are
going to fit in, in terms of your personality, attitude and
general work style.
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